Tài liệu Stephen King - The Plant 4 pptx

“What else is wrong with him, Riddley?” “Ah sho don’t know, Miz Jackson,” I said, but I know, all right, and Roger Wade knows as well—I think it’s almost incredible that Wade somehow per

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ly capable of driving; and I have resumed these pages after a three-week hiatus in which I have peacefully swept dirt by day and spread narrative

by night—and if that is not pomposity masquerading as eloquence, then nothing is.

But the accustomed drone is not quite the same as before, is it? There are two principal reasons for this One is down the hall and one is right here in my little janitorial cubby or perhaps it’s only in my head I would give a great deal to know which, and please believe me that my tongue is nowhere near my cheek when I say so The change down the hall is, of course, John Kenton The change in here (or in my head) is Zenith the Common Ivy.

Herb Porter doesn’t realize that anything at all is wrong with Kenton Bill Gelb has noticed but doesn’t care It was Sandra Jackson who asked

me yesterday if I had any idea why John had suddenly decided to go through every old manuscript in that corner of the mailroom I think of as The Isle of Forgotten Novels.

“No ma’am!” I said “I sho don’t!”

“Well, I wish he’d stop,” she said She popped open her compact, peered into it, and began to poke at her hair with an afro comb “I can’t even go in there anymore without sneezing until I’m just about blue Everything’s covered with dust and all that dry creepy stuff that comes out when those cheap padded mailers tear open You must hate it in there.”

“It sho is pow’ful dusty, Miz Jackson, and that’s a fack!”

“Is he mailing them back?”

“I doan’ know if he is nor not.”

“Well, you take care of the mail, don’t you?” she asked, putting away her compact and producing a tube of lipstick A twist of her fingers pro- duced something the size an shape of a child’s penis and the color of a hunter’s cap She began to apply this in great shiny plates I caught a whiff and immediately understood why Porter sniffs her seat instead of her face.

“Yes ma’am, I sho do!”

“So if you haven’t seen any of them going out, they aren’t going out Just as well If he was sending them out I would have to complain to Roger and perhaps even send a memo on the subject to Mr Enders.” She gave her lipstick a twist, recapped it, dropped it into the maw of the huge shapeless trunk she calls her purse, and preened for a moment “None of them were accompanied by return postage That’s why they’re there It’s not our business to send them back—most of them or all of them—but he

is doing it at his own expense, and it is thus none of La Jackson’s ness.

busi-“I wish he’d stop it, even if he’s dumping them down the tor,” she said, now producing a plastic canister which, when opened, dis-

incinera-closed dusting powder and a rather discolored puff Sandra Jackson then proceeded to disappear into a choking pink cloud that had much the same effect on me as the one she claimed Kenton’s office produced on her “He’s making the rest of us look bad and there’s no goddamned need

of it,” she finished from inside the cloud.

“No ma’am,” I said, and sneezed.

“Are you growing marijuana in here, Riddley?” she asked “It smells funny in here.”

“No ma’am, I sho ain’t!”

“Uh,” she said, and put away the puff She began to unbutton her blouse just as I’d begun to hope I was going to escape She doffed it, revealing two small decorous white-lady breasts like uncooked muffins with a cherry poked into each one She began to unzip her skirt and then paused in the act, giving me another moment of fleeting hope “What else

is wrong with him, Riddley?”

“Ah sho don’t know, Miz Jackson,” I said, but I know, all right, and Roger Wade knows as well—I think it’s almost incredible that Wade somehow persuaded such a total romantic to stay on, but somehow he did Porter doesn’t know, Gelb doesn’t care, and Jackson’s too self-cen- tered to see what’s right in front of her slightly saggy little white-lady tits: his girl told him that he just dropped off the Top Forty of her life And Kenton has responded (with a little help from Roger Wade, one must assume) in a way that seems both honorable and courageous to me—a way

I like to think I myself would respond: he’s working his fucking ass off Her skirt puddled around her feet and she stepped out of it.

“Want to play truckdriver and hitchhiker today, Riddley?” she asked.

“I sho do, Miz Jackson!” I said as her hands went to my belt-buckle and tugged it undone At moments like this I have about four fantasies to fall back on that never fail One, I regret to say, is of having my sister Deidre first diaper me and then accommodate me after I have made wee- wee in my didy Ah, sex is the great comedy, all right No doubt about that.

“Oh Mr Truck-Driver, it is so big and hard!” Jackson exclaimed in a squeaky little-girl voice as she grasped me And, thanks to Deidre and the diapers, it was.

“That there is my Hearst shifter, little Miz Hitchhikuh!” I growled,

“and right now I’se gwine th’ow it into overdrive!”

“At least ten minutes, Mr Truck-Driver,” she said, lying down “I want at lest three and you know it takes me ” She sighed contentedly as

I sank my drive-shaft into her universal joint “ awhile to get up to ing speed.”

cruis-Just before leaving (she had given her hair a few more good pokes with the afro comb before dropping it into her purse on top of her panties) she looked around sharply and asked me again if I wasn’t perhaps growing a little cannabis in here.

“No ma’am!” I said—I knew perfectly well by then that it was Zenith she was smelling, just as I know that Zenith the Common Ivy smells like

no ivy I ever came in contact with in my life.

“Because if you are,” she said, “I want my share.”

“But Miz Jackson! I done already tole you—”

“I know But just remember, if you are, I want my share.” And she left.

As things turned out she got four instead of three, and with any luck she’ll

be proof for a week or two before popping back to play Truck-Driver and Hitchhiker or Virgin and Chauffeur or possibly the Teensy White Editor and the Big Black Janitor, which is what all these games boil down to in the end.

But never mind; we have come to the other thing around here which has not lapsed back into dozy familiarity, and that is the ivy-plant sent by Kenton’s nemesis It raises a question in my mind which I have never suc- cessfully answered for myself—perhaps because for a long time my life and my ambitions have rendered it unimportant It is, I mean, a question

I haven’t thought about as seriously or so constantly or with such a clear interest that I have a personal stake in the answer since I was—oh, eleven

or so, I reckon The question is just this: Is there an invisible world or not? Are supernatural events possible in a world where everything seems either perfectly explained or perfectly explicable? Everything, that is, except for the Shroud of Turin

and, perhaps, Zenith, the Common Ivy.

I find myself thinking again and again about the feelings of deep boding that seemed to fall over me when I touched the box it—

fore-No; no, that isn’t right For whatever it’s worth, that is most

definite-ly not right The bad feelings I had about that box—dread, revulsion, a well-nigh ungovernable feeling of having stepped over a clearly marked border and onto taboo ground—did not come from outside The chill I felt did not fall over me or smother me or steal up my spine on cold little cat’s feet That feeling came from inside, rising up like a spring rises out

of the earth, a cold little circle in which you may glimpse your face, or the face of the moon Or even better, it came the way Faulkner says the dark comes, not falling out of the sky but rising inexorably up out of the ground Only in this case I believe the ground (Floyd would scoff ) hap- pens to be my own soul.

Never mind, though—pass it Never mind feelings, vapors, megrims or “subjective phenomena,” if you want to be polite.

Let us look at some rather more empiric data.

First: After looking at the Ivy entries in both Grolier’s and Collier’s Encyclopedias, plus the photos in Floyd’s college botany book, I am pre- pared to say that Zenith does not look like any of the ivies pictured there.

I mean, it looks like them in the same way that Fords look like Bugattis— they are both gasoline-powered vehicles with four rubber tires—but that’s

Common Ivy by some people, but Zenith looks more like a cross between Japanese Ivy and poison ivy than it does English Ivy Sending Kenton a poison ivy plant sounds like something that would tickle the bejabbers out of a fellow like Carlos Detweiller, but I have handled it, felt its leaves and vines, and have no rash Nor am I immune I had some killer cases of poison ivy when Floyd and I were kids.

Third: As Jackson said, it smells like cannibis sativa I dropped into

a florist’s on my way home tonight and smelled a Boston Ivy and a hybrid called a Marion Ivy Neither smelled like pot I asked the proprietor if he knew of any ivies that smelled like marijuana and he said no—he said the only plant he knew of which smelled much like growing cannibis is called dark columbine.

Fourth: It is growing at a speed which I find just a bit frightening I’ve carefully gone over my few references to the plant in this journal—and believe me when I say that if I had known how much it was going to prey

on my mind there would have been more—and have noted the following:

on February 23rd, when it arrived, I believed it would most probably die;

on the 4th of this month I noted a healthier appearance, an improved smell, four open leaves and two more unfurling, plus a single tendril which reached to the edge of the pot Now there are almost two dozen leaves, broad and dark green and oily looking The tendril which had reached the lip of the pot has now attached itself to the wall and runs near-

ly six inches up toward the ceiling It would look almost like an FM radio antenna except for the tightened curls of the new leaves along its length Other tendrils have begun to crawl along the shelf where I put the plant, and they are attaching themselves in the best ivy tradition I pulled one of these tendrils loose (had to stand on my overturned mop-bucket to get to Zenith’s level) and it came but with surprising reluctance The tendrils have stuck themselves to the wooden shelf with surprising tightness I could hear the minute ripping sound the tendril I chose made when it parted company from the wood, and I did not much care for the sound.

It left little marks in the paint It has, near the pot, produced a single dark blue flower—not very pretty or remarkable It is of the sort, I believe, pro- duced by the type of ivy commonly called gill-over-the-ground But all

of this in three weeks?

I have an unpleasant feeling about this plant It’s as much in the way

I so easily and unconsciously refer to it as “him,” I think, as in its dinary growth-spurt I think I want to have a botanist look at it Floyd will know one There’s one other thing but I don’t even want to write it down.

extraor-I th

(later)

That was my Aunt Olympia, calling from Babylon, Alabama My mother is dead It was very sudden, she said through her tears A heart attack During her nap No pain, she said through her tears How does anyone know Oh bullshit, my mother I loved her Aunt O said she’s been trying Floyd but no one answers, oh I did love her my sweet fat uncom- plaining mother who saw so much more than she said and knew so much more than she let on Oh I did love her and love her.

Movement now is best Floyd first then arrangements; family; burial.

Oh mama I love you.

I’ve had whiskey Two big gulps Now I’ll write it That plant Zenith Zenith the Common Ivy Can’t be an ivy Fucking thing’s carnivorous I saw two leaves that were open three days ago rolled up today So I unrolled them This is when I was standing on the mop-bucket, looking

at it Dead fly inside of one What I think was a mostly decomposed baby spider inside the other No time now I’ll deal with it another time.

Christ I wish I’d said goodbye to my mamma Does anyone ever get

a chance to say goodbye?

From The New York Post, page 1, March 27, 1981:

MAD GENERAL DIES IN MORTUARY HORROR!

(Special to the Post) The mingled ashes

of a man and a woman were recovered from

the floor outside the crematorium of the Shady

Rest (L.I.) Mortuary yesterday afternoon, and

the ashes and bones of a second man, believed

to be Major General Anthony R Hecksler

(Ret.), who escaped from Oak Cove Asylum

in upstate New York twenty-three days ago,

were discovered inside the crematorium

fur-nace itself.

The other two dead were Mr And Mrs.

Hubert D Leekstodder, owners of the Shady

Rest.

Sources close to the investigation told

the Post yesterday that Hecksler had had

busi-ness dealings with Mr And Mrs Leekstodder

some years ago, and that they were on his

“grudge-list.” A police official who asked not

to be identified said that the madman left a

note behind identifying the Leekstodders as

“foremen of the antichrist” and “real

all-around losers.”

The note was found pinned to the

ear-lobe of a corpse in the Mortuary’s composing

room.

“Losers or not, they are real crispy now,”

said Police Lieutenant Rodney Marksland of

the Long Island Police Department.

According to the Post’s police source,

details of what is now believed to be a suicide

and double murder are extremely grisly “We

think he killed the Leekstodders first and then

stuffed the bodies into the crematorium,

most-ly because it is just too horrible to believe he

could have stuffed them in there while they

were still alive,” the source said “But there’s

not much doubt about what he did then— raked out their ashes, turned on the gas, crawled in himself—although the temperature must have still be very high—and just flicked his Bic Poof! 3,000 degrees of spot heat The jets were still flaming when the heat alarms went off in the house across the street and the Leekstodders’ daughter-in-law came to see what was going on.”

It was not a Bic lighter that the mad General actually flicked, but a platinum-plated Zippo with the Army Emblem on it and engraved TO TONY FROM DOUG/AUG 7th, 1945 The “Doug” referred to is believed

to be Hecksler’s close friend General Douglas MacArthur.

“It was Iron-Guts, all right,” the Post’s

source claimed, adding that in addition to the lighter, searchers found a number of items amid the bone-dotted clumps of ashes in the death oven that have been positively identified

as belonging to Hecksler Although he declined

to name all of these items, our exclusive source

revealed to the Post that two of them were

gold teeth implanted following the end of World War II Hecksler was briefly captured

by the Germans during an intelligence tion in November of 1944, and two of his teeth were pulled during his interrogation It was the replacements for those two teeth which investigators found in the crematorium fur-

opera-nace, according to the Post’s source.

Related stories: New Yorkers Breathe Sigh

of Relief (4); Colorful career of Iron-Guts Hecksler Recalled (Centerfold).

F R O M T H E D I S P A T C H E S O F I R O N - G U T S H E C K S L E R

[Editor’s note:These dispatches were written in a number of blank S & H Green Stamp books

which the General apparently carried on his person at all times.]

A memo from H A R L

DAT E : 3/30/81

TO : Roger Wade, Editor in Chief, Zenith House

S U B J E C T: Three Books!! The Principle of Gravity!!

Rog!

Listen, babes, I took a meeting last Fri with Teddy Graustark, the Apex

veep in charge of Print Media Main topic was mags: Hot Tools, Raw Cycle, Third World Mercenary, Your Pregnancy, and Horny Babes We’re dropping all of them except for Third World Mercenary and Your Pregnancy Subj of

Zenith House also came up I bought you a little more time, babes, but get the year I promised you (which would be down to nine months now

for-anyway, want a sub to Your Pregnancy?—joke) Graustark will give you until June 30th to come up with three (3) books you guaren-goddamn-tee will hit The New York Times Bestseller List If you can do this, I think your job might be safe until summer of 1982 If they actually become best-

sellers, it’ll be safe until the middle of the decade or even longer Fail to do

this, and the Zenith operation goes the way of Hot Tools and Raw Cycle by

the end of October

You may be pissed about this, Roger-babes, but Graustark hit me withhis version of the Law of Gravity which struck me as TRUE TRUE

TRUE!: SHIT ROLLS DOWNHILL! That’s it in a nutshell And altho

sad, it’s true This particular ball o’ shit started with the Number OneApex Big Chief & Head Honcho, Sherwyn Redbone, then rolled down to

me I am now rolling it down to you, Rog, and I assume you will roll it ondown to your editorial staff, who just might be able to stop it before it gets

all the way down to the bottom of the hill If they can’t stop it, your cozy

little home at bottom of said hill is going to be buried beneath a huge &smelly ball of shit

To recapitulate (that’s not the one that means surrender, is it?), here

is your mission, should you choose to accept it ( joke) Three (3) books

which you guaran-goddamn-tee to be bestsellers, delivered by June 30th All three must hit the Times list this year, which means you better get

them in production as soon as possible

Sorry about the rush-rush, babes, but to quote The Chairman of theBoard (Frank Sinatra, not Mr Redbone), “That’s life, that’s how it goes.”

Yours,

Harl EndersComptroller, Apex

from the office of the editor-in-chief

TO: John Kenton, Herb Porter, Bill Gelb, Sandra Jackson

DATE: 3/30/81

MESSAGE: Okay, fearless editorial staff, the balloon has gone up.You will want to read the attached Harlow Enders masterpiece foryourselves, but the challenge we have been given is clear: to put three

paperbacks on the Times list, where no Zenith House product has

ever gone before, on or before December 31st This is absurd, ofcourse—like challenging someone to climb Mount Everest inBermuda shorts and tennis shoes—but that changes nothing.Editorial meeting later today, as always, but for now I’d like it in

writing: do any of you have a book you consider to be bestseller

material? I want memos by noon

Memos, please, not calls From now until the end, I want

tran-scriptions of everything we do If nothing else, I might want a largewad of paper to stuff up somebody’s ass

Roger

i n t e r o f f i c e m e m o

TO: Roger

FROM: Bill Gelb

RE: Possible Bestseller???

You’re kidding, of course This is lunacy I have a new Mort Yeager (hewrote it in the prison library—Attica) and it’s publishable after we takeout the bestiality (halfway through the book, I’m not shitting you on this,the villain has sex with his housecat), but that’s about it We also did

succeed in getting rights to novelize Lesbo Dracula (see pictorial in this month’s ish of Horny Babes), but now there seems to be some question

if it will be released anywhere except the porno houses Otherwise, thecupboard is bare

B.G

P.S This memo from Enders is a joke, isn’t it? A cruel joke

P.P.S When does Riddley get back from Alabama?

i n t e r o f f i c e m e m o

TO: Roger

FROM: Herb Porter

RE: Possible Bestseller

The idea of this place producing one bestseller, let alone three, is ludicrous.Having said that, I have a wacky idea, and you can shoot it down if youwant, but here goes Let’s get Olive Barker—still our best ghost writer, in myestimation—to write a quickie bio of Iron-Guts Hecksler, concentrating onhis final rampage Now that the guy is dead, we’ve got the whole tale—beginning, middle, fiery climax I could even kick in a chapter about whatwent on here, maybe juice it up a little What do you think?

Herb

P.S I think you should hunt Enders down and kill him just for calling you

“babes.” Bad news is bad enough The man is patronizing

P.P.S Has anyone heard from our mailroom and janitorial staff? Riddley,

in other words Went by his cubby today Something in there smells

real-ly good Sort of like hot toast and jam

i n t e r o f f i c e m e m o

TO: Roger Wade

FROM: SANDRA JACKSON

RE: Totally silly request

Roger (or should I call you “Babes”?),

Zenith House has never published a bestseller and never WILL publish abestseller But I DO have a rather nutty idea It has to do with Anthony L.K.LaScorbia, our Nasty Creatures from Hell writer People have apparently been

sending Tony jokes For example: “What do you call 5 million marching

Brazil-ian fire-ants?” Answer: Lunchtime in Rio Or: “How many babies does it take

to satisfy a pack of rampaging scorpions?” Answer: How many have you got?These may not strike you funny, but I laughed my butt off, and several peo-ple I’ve told them to have also laughed (some against their will, from the look

on their faces) Why not let him loose on this? It can’t hurt He wants to call

it Jokes from Hell He insists it’s a new kind of joke, he calls it the “Sick Joke.”

What do you think?

bak-i n t e r o f f bak-i c e m e m o

TO: Roger

FROM: John

RE: Insane request

RE: Responses from Bill, Herb, and Sandra

Herb said it best, babes—the idea is ludicrous Nevertheless, I keep working

my way through the old manuscripts Nothing even close so far, and I’mdown to the last two shelves If nothing else, we can all go on unemploymentknowing that the mailroom is clean for the next company that moves in.Having said that, let me tell you that I feel depressed (more than usual,that is) to realize I must count myself, along with Bill, among the goatsinstead of the sheep I mean, Herb and Sandra at least came up with ideas,didn’t they? Which leads me to the real purpose of this memo You’re theboss, not me, but I actually think both ideas have merit A book about theGeneral would sell, especially if we really hustled it out there I know that

we don’t have the ability to produce an “instant book” like the ones whichfollowed the release of the Watergate tapes, but Olive could work fast, espe-cially if Herb worked on it with her I’m sure he’d give himself a starring

role, but even that might work.

The joke-book idea is more nebulous, but I have to tell you that when

I read that, I felt some obscure circuit (probably one I should feel ashamedof) go hot Possibly we could widen the scope, i.e sick jokes on every sub-ject? And stick a funny name on the author, something like Ima Sicko orI.B Ill? I know how it sounds—in a word, sub-juvenile—and yet it seems to

me something might be there

My first reaction was I wish I’d thought of that A sick joke in itself.

Clearly we have reached the bottom of the barrel, but I think you should

give it a shot Meanwhile, I’ll continue with the last of the unreturnedscripts I’m in too deep to back out now.

John

P.S A book of jokes would be an even faster turn than a factoid book on oldIron-Guts Like a week All we have to do is put our heads together andcome up with the most scabrous jokes we can remember Q What do youcall a kid with no arms and legs? A Second base

P.P.S I really was president of the Literary Society at Brown, although all that seems like a dream to me now In fact, this whole year seems like a

dream

P.P.S.S Why is everyone so worried about Riddley? What’s this about goodsmells coming from his closet? The last time I was down there in smelledlike mold and Lysol I might have to check this out Also, I’m tempted to tellSandra I know exactly where she can put her wastebasket I’d be glad to helpwith the insertion procedure, too

P.P.S.S.S When does Riddley get back? I sho does miss dat man! Yassuh!

from the office of the editor-in-chief

TO: Herb

DATE: 3/30/81

MESSAGE: The book about Hecksler is green-lit Tentative title: The

Devil’s General Talk to Olive Barker at once You’re authorized tooffer her $2,500 plus expenses up to $150 a week for four weeks Ifwe’re going out, we might as well go out spending Apex’s money just

as hard and fast as we can We’ll want photos for a book section You’ll be working on her every step of the way, Herb.Tell her she’s off downers for the duration.

middle-of-the-Uppers are fine

this scabrous little tome ourselves Tentative title: World’s Sickest

Jokes We’ll have our first editorial session on this project this noon, at Flaherty’s Pub down the street This is the closest thingwe’ve got to a winner, so let’s take it seriously We need to thinkabout whether or not we want (or dare) to go ethnic, as in “Howmany Poles does it take” and “How many Mexicans does it take.”

after-My feeling is if we’re going to go sewer-diving, we might as well goall the way to the bottom And don’t you or anyone else talk to meabout sharing royalties on a book of jokes about dead babies andsodomy We’re saving our jobs here, or trying to

Perhaps we should invite Riddley into our little brain-trust He’ll

be back next week, and I hope you’ll pass that along to your leagues We’re dying here, and all anyone seems to care about is thegoddamned janitor

col-Roger

P.S Also, stay out of his closet I think he keeps his personal stuff inthere.

P.P.S Unless you want to wash some windows or wax some floors, ofcourse In that case, be my guest

i n t e r o f f i c e m e m o

TO: Roger

FROM: Bill Gelb

RE: Riddley Walker’s possible contribution to insane and degrading book

joke-By all means let’s get him in on the project when he gets back Maybe

he can contribute a few dead-mommy jokes

from the office of the editor-in-chief

TO: Bill Gelb

DATE: 3/30/81

MESSAGE: As someone who hasn’t even come up with a dim idea for

a book of any kind, I suggest you keep your wisecracks to yourself.

Or maybe go down to R.W.’s closet and sniff the air It seems to havedone wonders for Herb and Sandra That is not a serious suggestion

As I told Sandra, the janitor’s closet is strictly Riddley’s domain

From John Kenton’s diary

March 30, 1981

I staggered into my apartment tonight half-drunk from the weirdest storming session of my life (place, Flaherty’s Pub; subject, what do you call

brain-a leper in brain-a hot tub, etc., etc.) I’m drinking fbrain-ar too much lbrain-ately, yet I would

be a flat liar if I didn’t say I felt a weird, shameful excitement Nor is it justbooze driving my emotions—at least I don’t think so I don’t know if a joke-

book can possibly hit The New York Times bestseller list—probably not—and yet I think we all felt that sense of something actually happening Before we

were done, half the people in the pub were contributing jokes, my favoritebeing the above-referenced about what you call a leper in a hot tub (Stu, ofcourse) If it’s any consolation, Sandra and Bill both finished up drunkerthan me, Roger perhaps a shade less so Herb Porter doesn’t drink I believehe’s got a problem with it, and goes to those meetings where you introduceyourself by your first name

Weird, weird meeting But not as weird as the letter I found waiting for

me in my mailbox when I finally swam home I’m too headachey to writemuch more tonight, all I want is to eat something non-contentious and go

to bed, but I will clip Ms Barfield’s letter to this page of my diary, and take

it in to the office tomorrow Perhaps by then the nagging chill I feel running

up my back will be gone

Roger will know what to do At least I hope so And perhaps he’ll knowsomething else as well: how a woman who runs a flower shop and green-house in Central Falls, Rhode Island could have known my address My

home address.

And Kevin

How in God’s name could she had known about Kevin? Not just Kevin,

either Kevin Anthony, she writes

Kevin Anthony, 7/7/67.

She also says she doesn’t like Carlos Detweiller—that she’s afraid ofhim—and there’s that much to be grateful for, but I find I’m not much com-forted.

After all, she could be lying

Fuck this, I’m going to bed With luck, they’ll all stay out of my dreams.Ruth Tanaka most of all Something odd: at one point during our time inFlaherty’s, I went into the bathroom While I was standing at the urinal,Ruth’s name popped into my mind Her name but not her face For a cou-ple of seconds there I couldn’t see her face at all What came instead wasthe last of the “sakrifice photos.” Carlos Detweiller, his face in the shadows,holding up a dripping heart

Christ

l e t t e r t o j o h n k e n t o n f r o m m s t i n a b a r f i e l d

Mar 28 ’81 Dear Mr John Kenton,

You don’t know me from Eve the First Mother but I know you Also we have Carlos in common and you know exactly who I mean I am Tina Barfield the prop of the Central Falls House of Flowers You think you are thru with Carlos but Carlos is not thru with you You are in danger I am in danger Everyone at the publishing house where you work is in danger But also you have great opportunity The Dark Powers must give before they can take There are things

I can tell you Come and see me as soon as you get this letter As soon as you get

it My time here must end soon Some of the Tongues have begun to wag.

Do you think I am crazy Answer is yes you do But I can help you find the one you’re looking for It has been in that room all the time Why do I do this Partly because my soul, although mortgaged to the Goat, may still be redeemable Mostly because I fear & loathe Carlos Detweiller Hate that son of

a bitch! Would do anything to see his plans brought to Wrack and Ruin Believe

me when I say reports of his death will be greatly exaggerated Like the General Come Tuesday if you can Bring the Water-Boy if you want You can do

more than sidestep Carlos’s revenge, Mr John Kenton With my help you can use him to achieve your dream If you doubt me think of this: Kevin Anthony 7/7/67 I am sorry if this upsets you but there’s no time to spend convincing you that I know what I know.

Sincerely yours, Tina Barfield

From John Kenton’s diary

March 31, 1981

This has been a long day—a terrible day—a wonderful day—an know-what day All I know for sure is that I’m shaken to my heels To my verysoul You can blithely quote Hamlet—“more things in heaven and earththan are dreamt of in your philosophy”—and never think about what thewords mean And then maybe shit happens, like the kind of shit that hap-pened to Roger and me today And the floor you have so confidently spentyour life walking on suddenly turns transparent and you realize there’s a

I-don’t-horrible gulf below it And the worst thing is the gulf isn’t empty There are

things in it I don’t know what those things are, but I have an idea they’re

hungry I’d like to be out of this And yet there is something to what Rogersays I feel some of the crazy excitement I saw in his eyes I—

Oh man, this is no good I’m all over the map Time to take a deepbreath, settle down, and start from the beginning I’ll get this down even if

it takes me all night I have an idea that I wouldn’t be able to sleep much,anyway And do you know what haunts me? What keeps going through my

head like some kind of crazy mantra? The Dark Powers must give before they

can take The possibilities in such a simple statement! If such a simple

state-ment could ever be true!

Okay From the beginning

Usually it takes the alarm five minutes of uninterrupted braying to get

me up, but this morning my eyes popped open all on their own at 6:58 AM,two minutes before I’d set it to go off My head was clear, my stomach set-tled, not so much as a trace of a hangover, but when I got up I left my owndark silhouette behind me on the sheet; I must have sweat out a pint of min-gled booze and salt water in the night I had ugly, tangled dreams; in one ofthem I was chasing Ruth with some sort of poisonous plant, yelling after herthat if she ate the leaves, she’d live forever

“You know you want to, you bitch!” I was yelling at her “Smell theleaves! Like cookies in your grandma’s kitchen! How can something thatsmells like that be bad for you?”

I grabbed a quick shower, a few mouthfuls of juice right from the ton, and then out the door I went Roger always gets in early, but this morn-ing I meant to beat him

car-On the bus I read through the Barfield woman’s letter again Last night,fuzzy with drink and about two thousand jokes concerning lesbians, blackpeople, and deaf nuns, all I could see was my dead brother’s name In theflat gray light of an overcast New York morning, sitting amidst the last wave

of blue-collars and the first wave of white- and pink-collars—strangely

serene in that uneasy mixture of Posts and Wall Street Journals—I read the

letter again, this time better able to appreciate its multi-layered weirdness.Yet it was my brother’s name my eyes kept returning to

I stepped off the elevator and onto the fifth floor of 409 Park Avenue

He looked up, startled, then smiled “You’re here early But I’m glad.I’ve got something to show you, John.”

“I’ve got something to show you, too.”

“All right.” He pushed back from the typewriter, then looked at it withdistaste “The book about General Hecksler is going to be unpleasant, butthe joke-book…man, this stuff is ugly.” He looked at his current copy andread: “’How many starving Biafarans can you get in an elevator car?’”

“All of them,” I said Now that we were out of the smoke and laughterand yelled drink orders and the blaring juke that combine to make Flaherty’sFlaherty’s, the joke really wasn’t funny at all It was sad and ugly and dan-gerous The fact that people would laugh at it was the worst thing about it

“All of them,” he agreed softly “Fucking all of them.”

“We don’t have to do the book,” I said “There’s no paper on it yetexcept for a couple of memos, and those could disappear.”

“If we don’t do it, someone else will,” Roger said “It’s an idea whose

“Doesn’t mean she does Who’s Kevin Anthony? Any idea?”

“Kevin Anthony was my brother When he was ten, he started losingthe sight in one eye It was a tumor They took the eye, but the cancer hadalready gotten into his brain He was dead within six months My motherand father never got over it.”

The color left Roger’s face “God, I’m sorry I didn’t know.”

“No, you didn’t No one in New York does, so far as I know Let aloneCentral Falls I hadn’t even gotten around to telling Ruth.”

“And the date? Was that—”

I nodded “The day he died, right Of course none of this is top secret

The woman could have found out Mediums wow their marks by knowing

stuff they’re not supposed to know, and in the end it turns out to have beennothing but research and legwork But—”

“You don’t believe it I don’t, either.” Roger tapped the letter “’Bringthe Water-Boy if you want to.’”

“I wondered about that,” I said

“When I was in high school, I went out for the football team I was ous about it, fool that I was I only weighed a hundred and thirty pounds,but I had visions of…I don’t know…being the Reading High School version

seri-of Knute Rockne, I suppose I was serious, but no one else was They justabout killed themselves laughing The team, the cheerleaders, the wholestudent body Coach along with the rest of them I ended up being the teamwaterboy It became my nickname It’s even in the yearbook Roger Wade,Class of ’68, Drama Club, Glee Club, Newspaper Ambition, to write theGreat American Novel Nickname, Waterboy.”

For a moment neither of us said nothing Then he picked up the letteragain “She seems to imply that Iron-Guts Hecksler is still alive Do youthink that’s possible?”

“I don’t see how he could be.” But I did see, at least sort of It had been

a fire, after all Nothing left but ashes and a few teeth It could have beendone It suggested a degree of cunning I didn’t much like to think of, butyes—it could have been done

“She wants us in Central Falls,” Roger said, turning off his typewriterand standing up “Let’s give her what she wants Still plenty of time to shagass over to Penn Station and catch The Pilgrim We can be in Rhode Island

by noon.”

“What about the joke book? What about The Devil’s General?”

“Let those three deadbeats do a little work for a change,” Roger said,cocking his thumb at the short corridor which opens on the editors’ cubicles

“You’re serious?”

“As a heart attack.”

And he was At 9:40 we were stepping onto Amtrak’s Pilgrim in thebowels of Penn Station, armed with magazines and bagels; at 12:15 we werestepping off in Central Falls; at one o’clock we were getting out of a taxi onAlden Street, in front of the Central Falls House of Flowers The place is arather shabby New England saltbox rising behind a dead lawn still dotted

with clumps of melting snow To the rear is an absolutely huge greenhouse

which does indeed stretch all the way to the next street Outside of theBotanical Gardens in D.C., it’s the biggest damned greenhouse I’ve everseen But unlike the Botanical in D.C., this one is filthy—the windows aregrimy, some mended with tape We could see little shimmers of heat risingoff the top—the apex, if you’ll pardon the word During the weird MardiGras of the original Detweiller craziness, someone referred to it as a jun-gle—I don’t remember who, probably one of the cops—and today Rogerand I could see why It wasn’t just the heat rising off the glass panels and intothe gray March chill; mostly it was the dark bulk of the plants behind thosepanels In the dull light they looked black rather than green

“My uncle would go bonkers,” Roger said “If he was still alive, that is.Uncle Ray When I was a kid, he’d always greet me with ‘Hey, I’m UncleRay from Green Bay.’ To which it was my job to reply, ‘Hey, Ray, what do

you say?’ And he’d come back with ‘Can ya stay, or do ya have to leave

today?’”

I suffered this rather bizarre reminiscence in silence The fact was, Icouldn’t take my eyes from the dark, crowding bulk of all those plants

“Anyway, he was an amateur horticulturist, and he had a greenhouse.

A little one Nothing like this Come on, John.”

I thought, being in a rhyming mood, he might add a verbal flip of the

hip like Let’s get it on, but he just resumed walking up the path The porch

steps were stained with a winter’s worth of salt Beyond them, in a window

by the door, was an FTD placard, the one with winged Mercury on it, and

a sign reading COME IN, WE’RE OPEN! The words were flanked withroses

When we reached the steps I stopped for a second “I just bered—you said you had something to show me, too Back at the office Butyou never did.”

remem-“Just as well I believe it may be better shown when we get back.”

“Does it have anything to do with Riddley’s room?” I don’t know wherethat came from, exactly, but once it was out I knew I was right

“Why, yes It does.” He looked at me closely Standing there at the foot

of the steps with the collar of his overcoat turned up, framing his face, and

a little color in his cheeks, it occurred to me that Roger Wade’s a prettygood-looking guy Better-looking now, probably, than a lot of the fellowswho made fun of him back in high school, calling him Waterboy and Godknows what else Roger might even know that, if he’s been back to any of hisclass reunions…but those voices from high school never quite leave ourheads, do they? Maybe if you make enough money and bed enough women(I wouldn’t know about those things, being both poor and shy), but I doubt

if they leave even then

A little bell jingled over the door when we went in The next thing to

hit me was the smell of flowers…but not just flowers The thought that

crossed my mind was Funeral parlor Funeral parlor in the deep south,

dur-ing a heat wave And although I’ve never been in the deep south durdur-ing a

heat wave—have never been in the deep south at all—I knew that was aboutright Because there was another smell under the heavy perfume of rosesand orchids and carnations and God knows what else It was meaty smell,bordering on rancid Unpleasant Roger’s mouth twitched downward at thecorners He smelled it, too

Probably back in the forties and fifties, when the place had been a vate home, the room we stepped into had been two rooms: the entry and thesmall front parlor At some point a wall had been knocked down, making alarge retail area with a counter running across it about three-quarters of theway in There was a pass-through panel in the counter, now raised, andbeyond it an open door leading into the greenhouse It was from there thatthe worst of the smell was coming The room was very hot Behind thecounter was a glassed-in coldbox (I don’t know if you call that kind of thing

pri-a refrigerpri-ator or not—I suppose you must) There were bouquets of cut ers and floral arrangements in there, but the glass was so fogged up—fromthe temperature difference between the two environments, I suppose—thatyou could barely tell the lilies from the chrysanthemums It was like lookingthrough a heavy English mist (and no, I’ve never been there, either)

flow-To the left behind the counter, sitting under a blackboard on which

var-ious prices had been marked, was a man with the Providence Journal held

open in front of his face We could just see a few wisps of white hair ing like milkweed over an otherwise bald skull Of Ms Tina Barfield therewas no sign

float-“Hello!” Roger said heartily

No response from the man with the paper He just sat there with theheadline showing—REAGAN WILL PULL THROUGH, DOCTORSVOW

“Hello? Sir?”

No movement A queer idea came to me then: that he wasn’t really aman but a mannequin posed with the newspaper upraised To foil